Two of the UK's most senior progressive rabbis have said that Israel's current political trajectory risks becoming "incompatible with Jewish values" and could pose an "existential threat" to Judaism itself. Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy, co-leads of Progressive Judaism (a newly formed movement representing roughly a third of UK synagogues), made the remarks ahead of the launch of a new book, Progressive Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel, which compiles 40 essays from Jewish clergy and community leaders on Zionism, identity, and the Israeli state. The rabbis argued that criticising the Israeli government is "a Jewish obligation" rather than an act of disloyalty, and expressed concern that far-right Israeli leaders such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir were distorting what religious Zionism means — a tension that came to a head last year when the pair were booed off stage at a hostage rally after calling for an end to the war and the creation of a Palestinian state.